


The Language of Memes

by ThaddeusBandido



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Gen, Rated T for some Swear Words, pegoryu if you squint, vine memes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 04:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16736721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThaddeusBandido/pseuds/ThaddeusBandido
Summary: Three (and a half) times in which Sojiro realized, accepted, and learned to roll with the fact that he’s an old man that's not hip with the kids.





	The Language of Memes

The first time Sojiro he heard one of Akira’s friends crack a “joke” back in May, he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not.

Akira and his two blonde friends studied in the cafe, which only happened because there was no one else there, currently. He wasn’t about to let the boisterous group push paying customers away from his shop, but that didn’t mean he had to be a massive hardass to his charge, either. Maybe the socializing would help, anyways. The short-haired dye blonde had him slightly on edge, but the girl with the twintails seemed like the respectful sort—she had a good head on her shoulders.

The three were huddled over some textbooks, attempting to be a functional study group. The occasional tangent or pointed gossip took over the table from time to time, and Sojiro just treated it as simple background noise as he washed the dishes behind the counter. More than once, he thought he heard Ann let out a frustrated sigh and gently slam her pen into her notebook.

After the fifth or sixth time, Akira looked at her from across the table and asked, “Ann, can you read this paragraph for me?”

Ann swished her hair in a glorious motion and replied in English, “ _No I can not!_ ” Ryuji started snickering at Akira’s slightly shocked face. She continued quickly, “ _What up, I’m Ann, I’m 19, and I never fuckin’ learned how to read._ ”

That pushed Akira to let out a small bubble of surprised laughter. Ann smirked at him as he tried to prevent his mirth from spilling out further—the polar opposite of the boy next to him, laughing freely at the dumb joke.

Sojiro tried to process what just happened. He would never ask in a million years, but he wondered to himself, _she’s not actually 19, is she?_ Then, his brain caught up with him and his guardian duties overrode his curiosity. He admonished in the little English he knew, “ _Language, Ms. Takamaki_.”

She looked over, shocked out of her teasing, and started fumbling in English on autopilot. “ _Oh, sorry Boss!_ ” She subconsciously switched to Japanese for her explanation, “It was just a dumb in-joke to lighten up the mood a little! My apologies for the language.” She pulled her phone out and bounded out of the booth over to him. “Here, watch this.”

She proffered her phone to him, and he watched a video of some American kid having a conversation with himself, followed by a loud voiceover. Ann snickered at the sound of the video. The clip repeated itself after six seconds, but the joke never really landed for him. Not even on the second time, or the third time, or the fourth, the fifth, sixth, seventh—

Ann took her phone back and mixed her languages as she acquiesced, “It’s a different type of humor, I suppose. _Different strokes for different folks_ , right?” The other two chuckleheads were still calming down from Ann’s impersonation of the kid from the short video as she returned to the booth and slid her phone back into her jacket.

Sojiro just shrugged and replied, “I guess. Maybe it’s just not for me.”

He underestimated the generational gap between him and his charge, so it definitely wasn’t.

Boss gestured the mug he was wiping down at the bespectacled boy in the booth and snarked, “Get back to helping that one so he doesn’t fail, anyway.”

He _deeply_ underestimated the intelligence of his quiet ward, so he definitely wouldn’t.

 

* * *

 

Sojiro walked back to the cafe after a brisk walk to check the mail at his house. The early July heat was finally getting to him as he sought refuge in the cooler cafe.

The doorbell chimed as he pushed the door open and saw Akira (who _wasn’t_ there before) sitting with his whole band of misfits, who appeared to be a captivating audience to the curly-haired leader despite the homework in front of them.

“So I’m sitting there, barbeque sauce on my titties,” Akira started. He didn’t get to finish whatever that ungodly sentence would have been because the two blondes unleashed full-bodied, bellowing laughter from across the table. Makoto’s frame was shaking as she hid her face with both hands. Yusuke simply looked concerned.

Sojiro thought he heard the artist murmur, “That seems like a waste of barbeque sauce,” as he turned around and left in confused silence.

 

* * *

 

The only time Sojiro tried to confront and understand these kids’ not-funny jokes went as well as he expected, when he looked back on it.

The doorbell chimed as the boss came in with a new shipment of staple fruits and vegetables. Normally he wouldn’t make that trip back to his house during business hours, but the tucked-away cafe was a little light on business, even for 10 A.M. on a Sunday in the middle of October. People flocked in droves to go get their pumpkin spiced swill; he’d stick with what he knew, _thanks_.

Akira spent the night elsewhere, and Futaba was the only one in the shop, tapping away at her laptop keyboard and seemingly oblivious to the outside world. The cat was with her staring at the monitor, seemingly unbothered by the lack of attention. She wasn’t disturbing any customers, so she could stick around as much as she wanted.

Sojiro passed by her and shifted his grip to pat her on the head. “Hey, kiddo.” Futaba leaned into the touch slightly.

“Hey, Sojiro.”

He smiled to himself, glad to have these moments of domesticity after everything that happened before. She was still buried in her computer, yes, but that was just familial—he never expected that to change. But she was out, getting sunlight, bathing regularly, making friends again, and her quick and steady recovery over the last couple of months was leaps and bounds beyond his highest hopes from before. It was a modern-day miracle.

But, for now, vegetables. He had a business to run after all, and taking advantage of the downtime to run inventory on his stock of curry ingredients was never a bad idea. He pulled out his checkpad and began to double check all of his numbers. Beginning stock, minus number of pots made times the number of each vegetable needed, then the same from Akira’s notes, minus expired or spoiled stock…

Carrots were fine. Perfect count on onions. Apples, all accounted for.

How is he missing four potatoes? His count from last night was correct. Not much could have happened between then and now. Unless…

“Futaba, do you know why I’m missing some potatoes?” It was a long shot, but he was out of options at this point.

Unflinching from her typing, Futaba explained, “Yeah, some of the potatoes in the back were starting to grow little roots so I yeeted them.”

Sojiro’s look of befuddlement told the whole story. “You did… what?”

Futaba shrugged, fingers flying across the keyboard with mechanical precision. “They were spoiled, so I decided to yeet them. You can’t serve bad food if you want to stay in business,” she said sagely, as if she had experience running a business.

Sojiro was completely, hopelessly lost. “What?”

The question finally pulled Futaba’s attention from her laptop. She made an attempt an explanation, offering, “You know, _this bitch is empty, yeet_ ,” the last bit mumbled out the side of her mouth as she made an arced throwing motion.

“Yes, but what does that—Futaba, watch your language,” Sojiro scolded, weakly.

She didn’t even flinch. “Yeet’s not a bad word.”

“ _Futaba._ ”

The doorbell chimed once again as the door swung open to reveal Akira, adorned as always with his messenger bag. His casual clothes looked a little more ruffled than usual, but he appeared to be no worse for wear. Sojiro turned to him and asked, “What does ‘ _yeeting_ ’ something mean?”

The boy blinked slowly and turned to Futaba. “What did you yeet, Futaba?”

Futaba stood from the booth, raised her arms, and quietly shouted, “He had some spoiled potatoes! So I took them out to the dumpster and yeeted them with all my power!”

Sojiro watched the emerging back and forth, resigned to not receiving the easy answer he wanted.

“Did you at least use the business dumpster? You’re supposed to only yeet things into that one for the cafe.”

“Of course I did! What else would I use, the pleasure dumpster?!”

“Don’t call Ryuji that, he’s just a friend.”

Futaba fell back into the booth from the unexpected power of her cackling, clutching her stomach. Sojiro sputtered, thanking the powers above there was no one in the restaurant. Akira turned back to the boss and said simply, “Yeeting something is to throw it away forcefully. It’s a whole thing.”

Sojiro ran a hand down his face, the agony in his face only half for show. “Sheesh, it takes forever to get anything out of you kids, these days.”

 

* * *

 

Ryuji, Futaba, Ann, and Haru huddled outside Leblanc, shivering slightly in the cold of the late November evening. Akira was still bedridden after his interrogation, and he’s seemed to have slid into a despair no matter how well he tried to hide it. Thus, it was up to them to cheer him up.

Not that the kids let Sojiro in on their plan.

When he showed up to unlock the cafe at their request, Sojiro finally forwent asking what their plan was, where Futaba found the sleigh bells she was holding expectantly, or where all four of them got the cheap, campy Christmas clothes they were wearing. The less he knew, at this point, the better.

The bells in Ann’s reindeer antler headband jingled slightly as she turned and said, “Are you ready, nerds?”

Ryuji stiffened and rebuffed, “ _You’re_ the huge nerd here.”

Futaba strained onto her tiptoes to flick the ball on the end of Ryuji’s tiny santa hat. “You’re gonna say _that_ when I’m standing right here? We have a cat boy to meme on!”

Haru chirped, “And a boy cat.”

Ryuji whined, “Yes, yes, a boy-cat, cat-boy combo,” exasperated at their private little joke. “C’mon it’s freakin’ cold out here!”

Sojiro wordlessly shook his head and unlocked the door. He got ahead of the kids and announced loudly, “Hey kid, I forgot something down in the kitchen. I’ll be back out in a little bit.”

Then, the rhythmic sleigh bells started up. The three buffoons and Haru started singing, “You better watch out, you better watch out, _you better watch out_ , _YOU BETTER WATCH OUT_ —”

Sojiro was ready to shout them down for frightening the recovering boy upstairs until he heard faint, slightly pained chortling from the loft, which only grew into louder cackling when the quartet got all the way upstairs and the cat started wailing. He made out a strangled, “It’s not even December yet!” from Akira amidst the hysterics and terrible caroling.

He knew better than to question any of their nonsense now.

He slid out of the cafe and quietly locked the door behind him, hoping that laughter was truly the best medicine.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd since my beta reader is busy polishing off their Nanowrimo! I wish them all the best :D
> 
> I spent a relatively long time _not_ writing Persona 5, which meant that pumping out 1800 words of low-calorie drabble as soon as possible was basically a necessity. I don't write a lot of Coffee Dad, but I wanted to capture a little bit of him here.
> 
> I'm eternally grateful for comments, no matter the size, so if you liked any of Sojiro's rampant pop culture illiteracy (or found any glaring mistakes that my proofread did not), please let me know!
> 
> I have a Twitter account now for all my fandom nonsense! You can follow me [here!](https://twitter.com/tbandido_writes)


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